On the outskirts of the galaxy, astronomers have found countless faint ribbons of stars.
Using a new algorithm with the help of data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, scientists revealed that the number of these “stellar streams” may be four times higher than typically found.
according to space.com, This latest discovery could help unravel how our galaxy evolved as well as the distribution of its dark matter.
It is worth mentioning that when dense star clusters move through the gravitational field of the galaxy, the stars form protruding threads called “stellar streams”. Arching threads shed wires that hang in long, trailing ribbons.
“It’s like riding a bike with a bag of sand, only there’s a hole in the bag. Those grains of sand are like stars left behind along their trajectories,” Oleg Gedin, a theoretical astronomer at the University of Michigan, said in a statement.
In particular, the patterns and movements of stellar streams record the gravitational forces they experience, making them a key tool for recording the mass of a galaxy, which also helps measure dark matter haloes.
It is important to note that dark matter serves as an invisible “glue” that holds galaxies together; However, despite years of research and findings it has not yet been directly observed.
